ID Card

Baruch Aaron Szabasson

Born: 1927, Kozienice, Poland

Baruch was known by his family and friends as Buzek. He came from the east central Polish town of Kozienice. Kozienice was a popular vacation spot situated near lakes and a birch forest. Baruch's father worked in the lumber business.

1933-39: Baruch attended public school, and in the afternoons he also went to Jewish religious school. On Friday nights for the sabbath, Baruch would go to his grandparents' house, where his relatives would gather to visit with one another. Baruch would run to his grandfather and search his pockets for candies, which he always found. The Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, and after occupying Kozienice that same month, they set up a ghetto there in the winter.

1940-42: In 1940 Baruch was not able to celebrate his bar mitzvah, the Jewish passage to adulthood, because the Nazis forbade large public gatherings in the ghetto. The Szabassons found food any way they could, often by trading on the black market. In 1942, 15-year-old Baruch was deported for slave labor. In the labor camps, he caught typhus.

Baruch died of typhus in the Czesnow labor camp in Poland that year. After the war, his father re-buried him in Kozienice.